You're nothing like them
by Jess Brook
Summary: A serving girl on her cleaning round rushes into the usually empty rooms to find a brooding Guy of Gisborne.
1. Chapter 1

It was a Monday, and as per the usual for Monday I found myself walking the long halls and corridors of the castle, cleaning rooms and taking the bed sheets away to be washed as always needed to be done. The usual was for it to be a mass panic, having to rush in and out before the lords and ladies return to preen for their evening meals. It wasn't worth your life to leave a speck of dust or god forbid still be cleaning when they arrive.

So there I was running down the sand stone floors, causing the patter of bare feet on the cold floor that signalled to everybody else that the court was still in order and the world was still turning. I'd opened the first door on whichever floor I'd been assigned, this was in all honesty the norm. Not a single dignitary was ever seen in their room after a certain time. I dropped a bucket beside the door and span back around to grab the sheets from the bed and there he was.

My eyes moved upwards from the floor and at the same time my cheeks flushed red. They covered two legging clad legs up towards the bare expanse of dark-skinned chest with a beautiful scattering of dark curls the invited you in. I admit, my eyes linger too long so that by the time they'd creeped up to his face the two intense blue eyes were glowering at me. Guy of Gisborne, just stood there half-naked and I was frozen dead to the world.

I screamed at my legs to shuffle out of the room and they did nothing so I just stared, and finally noticed the vague redness around his eyes, the little notation that said he'd been alone up here. That explained why he was up here, I noted, he would still be brooding over the Lady Marian.

"Um- I'm sorry my lord, please excuse me" I didn't know if it had been a second or an hour but I finally managed to stutter the words out, shuffling to grab my bucket and leave before the dull tones of his voice came from behind me.

"Ah, don't worry, do what you need to." he stumbled over his words, deftly picking up a shirt and pulling it over himself. I had to stop myself, as I turned, from admiring his body a little more. In the court there wasn't all that many men whom had a form that compared to his and so many fewer men that I would ever be allowed to see in this state, so I did savour it somewhat.

He watched wordlessly for a little while as I took the sheets from the bed and piled them into one of the buckets. I knew it wasn't working as fast now that I was in his presence, it just wasn't polite to run around when someone else was around so I had to hold the same slow pace I did in most of the corridors. I was just setting down a new sheet on his bed as he darted around to the other side , pulling it taut and starting to tuck it under. My eyes flicked up in shock.

"Oh, you don't have to-" I began, ready to jump and take over what he was doing before he cut me off with a raised hand and a mild smile in my direction.

"No, I want to." his voice wasn't cold, or harsh as most of their voices were, he didn't have it left in him to act the part so it was flecked with subtle sadness. I didn't question him, if he wanted to help it wasn't mine to object and it was nice, they never usually thought to even offer.

"I'm sorry" he uttered, half a minute later as we finished pulling the sheet down, he'd done a good job actually with those thin dexterous hands. "I shouldn't have scared you" he finally pulled himself up, looking quite proud of his smooth sheet.

"No, I should have knocked first Sir" I smiled softly at him, glancing around for a minute to check for anything I may have forgotten before I left.

"You're rushed enough as I understand it." for the first time his eyes seemed to look at me, actually noticing I was a human being and looking at me. I suppose that sounds awful but most of them will look at you like you look at a table, like a tool and with no empathy or kindness.

"You shouldn't have to deal with all the trouble they give you." Guy rested himself on a table and gave the obvious impression that he'd rather I didn't leave. I assumed that if someone wanted to report me for missing work that I'd been with him, he certainly out ranked any of my employers by a long run.

"Not much of a choice in the matter Sir." I replied, deciding that I would happily stay for as long as he wanted the company, after all he did look so alone and ever so slightly broken. It would have been cruel to leave him if he desired to have someone.

His eyebrow twitched up towards, stretching the few lines his face bore into a smooth face of skin. "Nobody should be expected to be paid tuppence to run down corridors." he paused before adding "No matter how much time they spend in court"

"Nearly everybody else who spends as much time as you would disagree with that." my lip quirked, it was almost like he actually cared some about me. "and besides, I'd rather deal with that than actually be in court." I shuddered, and although it was put on the sentiment was real. I could see it in his eyes, he was a gentle soul, he didn't belong with the liars, cheats and murders who played in the court, he belonged with a beautiful woman and children.

Guy's eyes caught the floor for a moment as he smiled to himself, returning from his own private joke I'd supposed he approached. I'd assumed he would stop once he was one or two paces closer but he didn't, he stopped barely half a pace away from me. Gingerly his hand rose, slowly as if to measure my reaction which was as most servant girls, to wince. That again I suppose sounds stupid but, from a man of court to a serving girl a raised hand only ever means a slap and once you've suffered one or two for speaking out of line, you'd wince too.

"No, you're nothing like the women at court are you?" His hand rose slightly faster, but it wasn't going to be a slap, it simply caressed my cheek, bringing a deep red blush to the skin where he touched in contrast to the usual sharp contacts.

My breathing was rebelling against me, and I knew he would know as I chewed my bottom lip. "You still know how to feel don't you?" he whispered after a moment, painfully close to me. I could feel his breath against my skin, warm and light, not that I needed it, the way his words cut the silence was enough to make me legs wobble. I shouldn't want him, he certainly wouldn't want me even if he was brooding over his maid as usual. I wasn't even on his page, if the ladies knew he was even alone I expect they'd be queues outside his chamber.

In response I nodded, it was just about all I could gather together in the state of things, still half expecting for his rough fingertips to retreat and apply the less than tender touch I'd expected. It was probably all a game, tease me to see if I would bite while he waited for someone to come looking for me and then it would be to the dungeons. I scolded myself mentally, if I'd only just been more cold, I'd have been out of here now back on my duties and whatever they would do to me would be a lesser punishment. I'd made him into a noble man in my head because it had suited my wandering eye at the time, and I was a fool with a fools heart I decided, refusing to believe the mutter in the back of my head.

He looked up, his own blue fire-like eyes burning intently into mine, as if searching for the truth. For just a moment in his I saw the smallest spark of darkness, sadness and despair.

"Would you mind reminding me" Guy breathed, his lips already crossing that half-pace between us.


	2. Chapter 2

I should locked up in some stocks right now, was the thought that crossed my mind as his lips crossed to touch mine. My heart raced while for just a moment he kissed me and I did nothing, shocked back into my own shell, and out of his. Then instinct took over.

My lips found their rhythm around his. They were not nearly as polished or perfect as his, in fact I was entirely aware they were chapped from my habit of biting them when I panicked but that wasn't bothering me even in the contrast. His were light, smooth and skilled at their task, they knew a woman's mouth better then she did and knew the ways of pleasing her better than any man. Nipping and sucking at precise moments, if his intent was for it to be a passing peck he had miscalculated, the moment was too sweet to pass up.

Guy's long arms slunk around me, encasing me in their tight grasp, I couldn't run away if I'd wanted, not that it even crossed my mind. My mind was too deep in the moment and my hands were too deep into his dark tousled hair to care either way, and this didn't seem to phase him.

It was wrong, it was actually everything you were ever told not to do in one beautiful crescendo of wrong and yet here I was, enjoying every second like I needed it to carry on breathing today.

His skin was like acid against mine, dissolving the inhibitions. It wasn't rough as much as intimate, as if he craved the affection of another human being and at this point, it didn't really matter whom. His fingers fast chasing the topography of my back, understanding ever peak and trough as if I were a sculpture, I felt like I was one, the way he treated me with the same expedience he would any other woman, I felt as if I was a woman of the court, like I belonged.

Little more than a well timed pull on a lank lock of hair and one scratch down his neck and things were moving beyond a place where either of us would be in a fit state to walk away. Guy's searching hands left my back for a moment and I waited half expecting his lips to follow in the pull away but they didn't, the hands found their way under my knee and behind me to support my back and in one graceful move he was lifting me well off the ground.

I felt weightless as he carried me across the floor, his dark boots clipping the floor as he effortlessly moved me, never breaking that kiss, never making even a single movement of strain. Lighter than air was the feeling and nothing really compared, not that I complained when he slowly lowered me down onto the bed gently. He didn't let me drop or be anything less then perfect as he pushed me back onto the mess of freshly lain sheets, using his body as if to shield mine from the world. I didn't take him long to be peeling his shirt off, and I didn't have to be told twice after that.

I assumed that since we were crossing this boundary well that they were all gone, so I slipped my hands under the edge of his shirt and his hands dropped away. I kept my eyes focused on his, boring down on me with a new expression of desire that has indeed been burning behind them all this time. I deftly unbuttoned each button so carefully and slowly. Touching his skin only lightly with my fingertips to irritate him. I knew he had to want it, that if I played the game, showed him want desire was to most people that it would work. So I did, and ten minutes later when I finally pushed the cotton off of his shoulders it didn't take him half a second to have spun me around on the bed.

Really, he flipped me as if I was a china doll with the soul intent of getting at the lacing on my dress. There was a skill to getting a woman out of clothing and it was one he did actually pocess to my surprise. I didn't think he would understand the more basic corset back of my dress compared to the complex clasps of other women he would have been with out the years and enjoyed the company of. But no he had it, and he wasn't in the game for teasing as I was, no he wanted it off and worked faster than you would think possible to make it so. Each layer of dress he pulled off made us both need it more and need it sooner to the extent that when I finally lay naked as a present before him he felt the need to pause.

I'd been with men before, quite a few men and none of them have ever just looked at me. It's rather unnerving to be completely at someone else's will and so entirely exposed and just to be looked at, but in the same breath it's invigorating the idea that he was interested enough in my form as well as my mind to sit and look at the flesh that makes me as well as the mind.

Not that it matters, it was only a passing moment although one I suspect we both savoured for a long time in our minds afterwards. In a seconds notice I had helped him swiftly out of the leggings and he stood before me in his full form. It was beautiful.

I don't really know what else you're meant to say when in the presence of a man like him, with the body of some warrior lord who fights for a living and loves every night with a different woman. Which I supposed was probably true of Guy as well since I was being given permission to grace his bed that morning but I banished the thought as our lips bound together once more, as his body seemed to crush mine with both warmth and weight of it.

I was ready for him and there was no having him to wait, he the man of the sheriff and I was a serving girl, he by all logic should not care for my comfort at all. Yet he did, he was slow and gentle to begin with, allowing me a moment to lie back and enjoy things before I dug my fingers gracelessly into his skin. Then to say he was anything in the realms of tame, it would have been a lie. I felt sure the maidens down stairs could hear our laboured breathes and pick up on the beat in which we hammered the back into the stones below. It seemed in that moment quite possible the king would be able to hear us in the holy lands and did I care? No, I didn't care if my inabilty to stay quiet under his complete assault lost me a head, not at the given moment at least.

His eyes never left mine as he took me, and hands never stopped exploring him, understanding the beautiful symphony of muscles that powered his nigh violent actions, the soft and rough skins that covers his body and the way his rib cage vibrated gleeful as he finished inside me with some force. It was no more matter than one stray flick of the thumb after that, and all that I had been holding onto, being the lady and letting him go before left me.

Guy lay atop me, feeling me becoming a shuddering mess below and slowly together we sat out the aftermath. Our arms locked together in a moment of intimacy we stole from the fates as we both prayed to ourselves that nobody else had heard our mistranslations and that nobody else would ever find out, for the sake of my life and his status. Things that just hadn't mattered in the moment seemed to matter now, although probably the most critical thought did not cross my mind, just about everything else did though.

We spent probably a whole sated hour on the bed together before gathered himself a roused me, announcing he had business else where sadly, and that he would tell my employer where I had been, and that I was not to be punished. I pulled a smile across my lips but it wasn't right, I still felt dirty, like I'd just been his wench for the morning except he hadn't even had to pay me at all.

I pretended to be pleased as he slipped out of the door, off to some court business or other, he'd suggested I stay in here, lest we be seen leaving together. I did so, in fact I paced over to his bed.

This time I was alone as I pulled the sheets taut, leaving them neater than he did and removing all trace of a wrinkle that might have developed.

Throwing my clothes on I slide out of the door I'd come in through and patted bare footed down the corridor, Guy of Gisborne's dirty washing in my bucket as well as my mind.


	3. Chapter 3

Things we're fairly ordinary after that one day of gleeful madness, he was true to his word mind, I never heard anything of my absence for which I was glad. I kept my piece, telling other people of his moment of weakness would be cruel, and besides it wouldn't just be him shunned by the public, they would try to have my head as well.

I spotted him a few times in the corridor, he didn't look at me, he didn't even appear to recognise me. I supposed he'd forgotten it all, that I was probably one of a long line of lovers and I should not have expected anything more than that, I was just the serving girl after all.

No within a week I'd banished the lustful dream that had been that one morning, it was something I had either imagined or something that would never happen again and to that end it didn't matter. I could not expect ever in my life to see such beauty or kindness from a man of power again, and they would not expect such exposure and novelty from me. I did not regret it though; it was worth the feeling of being used for those few minutes of happiness.

People noticed something different about me, constantly badgered me to tell them what had happened on my round, when they had noticed my absence. I think they assumed I'd been attacked, and refused to talk about it as I'd been threatened. Adorable fools, if only they'd known what had gone on.

It was little matter though, just a stray thought that kept me company as I cleaned the castle, something to take away from the monotony of it all. It was maybe a week afterwards that I had to think about it, well I couldn't say that I did think about it at the time.

I'd woken up and thrown up all over the floor, grabbing my hair away from my face to stop it getting mixed up in it. I didn't feel up to moving after that, and even knowing that I'd taken a day away from work. It wasn't even an option, I already felt weak afterwards.

It was only an hour later, staring blearily at the celling, that the obvious even crossed my made. We'd made love, and it was more than likely that it was possible. I counted the days allowed, slowly and carefully. It had been 8 days, my eyes clenched shut almost automatically, I didn't want this. It had been what, a single moment of weakness and now this could be happening, I could be pregnant with the bastard son of Guy of Gisborne.

I had to calm my breathing, stop myself from hyperventilating in my room. Nobody had come looking for me, they probably thought I was having a break down after being threatened. I'd probably lose my jo over this but it was frankly the least of my worries anymore. Would he have me killed? Make me get rid of the child? I couldn't think about it anymore, I didn't want this but the idea of getting rid of it. I shuddered, it wasn't a possibility either.

I wondered to myself briefly if I'd rather he never knew, rather that I was just looked at like a woman who made love to a stranger in contrast to the women who'd made love to the lord, at least that way I could keep it. No, I couldn't lie, he should know at the very least.

I pulled my wobbly self from the bed, refusing to give up on account of the sickness I felt in my stomach. I'd have to find him and tell him carefully, see what he wanted to do about it. It might not be even happening I consoled myself as I stumbled out of my small quarters, trying not to fall down anywhere.

If I happened to wear anything more formal than this people would offer their arms and ask me if I would like to be found a doctor from somewhere. As it was that would never happen, the cleaners walked around and didn't see anything and anybody higher never saw anybody lower than them. So I dragged myself only on the walls, using the nooks to support myself around the weaving halls.

I peered up from my position to see the stairs I would have to climb. My mind had already refused to crawl up them, so with my shaking legs and whirling mind. The first few steps were fine, slow and laborious but they were getting there slowly, then of course someone hurried down the same set of steps I was climbing up. I didn't see them and although they saw me they didn't see the state I was in so rushed as they usually would down the stairs and accidently brushed my side. He didn't notice or really care and by the time I was actually falling he was long gone. The little nudge was all I needed to trip my balance and I went flying down five or six steps, knocking my head sharply on the stone floor below.

This time I wasn't moving, at all. I didn't know if I was bleeding from my head or if I'd just knocked it too harshly against the floor and lost some of my cognitive ability but there was nothing in the world that would convince me to get up and move. I was drifting in and out of awareness and in one of my more aware moments I considered that the fall may have killed any child I may have been carrying inside of me anyway and that I couldn't decide if that was good or not.

Various sets of feet scurried past me, not one of them stopping to help. I didn't expect it, and I didn't really desire it, the assistance of some unknown wasn't what I wanted, I would just wait it out, soon enough I would be feeling stable enough to stand and find him again. I'd convinced myself of that, and despite all the possible dangers I let unconsciousness take me completely, leaving me to dull, dark and sickly dreams of concepts I did not even want to consider let alone allow into my tender mind.

I let myself listen to the steps as they went past, the fast light floating ones of the servants and the bold commanding ones of those with more power. In fact you could tell how much power they had, up to a point by the sound of their pace. One pair, and at the time I didn't know which since I'd kept my eye lids so very firmly shut, stopped dead before me. The air was disturbed but I didn't know yet what he or she was doing, I supposed they were probably looking me over for something they could take from me, I wouldn't have been surprised about that, in fact I'm sure I'd have been less surprised about that than the actual truth of what I saw.

I peeled my eyes wearily open, aware I was in not fit state to stop someone robbing me even if I wanted too but I didn't see a man above me picking my pockets with no regard for anything else, I saw something that I didn't quite believe.

It was Guy stood above me, with a queer look on his face. It said he didn't know whether he should help, it might become obvious that something had happened between us two and yet he couldn't quite leave me there to fend for myself after seeing the weakness in my eyes, he wasn't that much of a fool.

He pulled himself back up from the crouch he'd adapted, surveying me entirely to check for any other injuries that might stop him from doing what he had to. Finally he squatted once more, his head angled towards mine.

"I'm going to lift you" he stated, voice slightly peculiar as he did. Hands slide under my knees and back as on that lust filled morning but it wasn't the same. I did not feel light, I felt like a burden he did not want and every step he took wobbled my aching body into more agony.

I'd been drifting in and out of consciousness during the travel, at first I did not know where he was taking me but soon enough it was apparent. My eyes flicked open and recognised the cracks on the celling, the subtle scent of his room that had my heart skipping a beat.

Somewhere near his door I heard Guy's low voice speaking in low tones. "Get me a doctor and you know telling anybody else would be impractical for you" The threat was low, and carefully placed.

This was not the way I wanted to find myself back in his bed chamber at all.


	4. Chapter 4

Damage to the body, it can be recovered from, damage to the mind and soul however, it's less controllable. My mother had told me that once a long time ago and it seemed to float into my mind as I lay aching on an unfamiliar bed.

Guy wasn't lain beside me, but he did sit beside the bed waiting. His fingers tapped against the wood of the table creating the slow beat I breathed to and his eyes constantly flicked between the rise and fall of my chest and the door that he wished would open.

I felt awful, even if I was with child I wished I hadn't gone to find him. His cool domineer, even in my addled state I could see his disinterest. I'd tried to forget the thought that I might be one of many, a habit he takes up more often than ladies and lords would like to admit to but it was coming back to truth. Guy didn't want me here, he took me in a sense of obligation that he ought to help anybody. I was not special and I was a fool to have even thought of that, the idea that somewhere in the back of my mind I'd expected him to want my bastard child was beyond obscene I realised.

My mind was set, if I was with child I would get rid of it, since I wouldn't be able to take care of it and he wouldn't be even slightly interested in helping. With that I put it out of my mind, it was a grim thought and I needed what sanity I could scrap together to make it back to standing up right in one piece.

We stayed like that, in a stark near awkward silence for a little while, waiting for our silent message to travel the place, to find the doctor I felt I needed if I wanted to keep breathing, but that might just be his presence.

Thankfully after some time the door creaked open, I couldn't quite make out faces but the figure of the small skinny girl and the stouter doctor we're obvious. As if on a timer my breathing relaxed and my heart slowed, although only somewhat. It was similar to the feeling you get when you're parched but you have a drink in your hand you've yet to drink, it's immediately better to know that you're nearly sated.

Guy rose and they stood together behind a blinder. Between nipping in and out of consciousness I was aware of some chatter, but I couldn't tell you what it was about, although I'm sure saying it was about the fact I was lying in his bed was probably a good bet.

When they both returned they shared a grim look on their faces, I'm not sure if Guy had explained, or just told him that he didn't get to find out why but there was tension in the air that wasn't there before. The doctor sat in the chair beside the bed Guy had perched on and Guy himself hung back, watching us carefully and leaning against one of the walls.

"Richard Chandelle. I'm going to examine you." He was curt, but not really speaking to me. It was as if the richer man was convinced that I wasn't worth his treatment or courtesy.

Richard's hands were cold as ice and smelt of orange peel as they touched my neck, chest and abdomen. They pinched and pressed while I winced and gasped and not once did his expression change, or Guy's actually. They both remained in their respective places and watched me as if I were both the most and least interesting thing they'd ever seen.

That was until those cold harsh hands we're palpating around the stomach and I let out a wince. It was not as you should imagine one of pain; no it was one much more of fear. I worried he would be able to tell, that he would be able to feel if I was indeed with child. If he did would he tell Guy? Since he was obviously the man in charge of my care or due lack thereof.

The doctors eyes rose for a moment to look at me, still glassy eyed. "Did that hurt?" he drooled, barely interested in my response.

"No- Sir-" Speaking was new and difficult, something I had not even attempted yet today. The back of my throat was still acidic from being sick and my lungs felt as though they had never been used but some how I managed to stumble out the few horse words.

Richard shook his head, seeming to ignore the effort it took me to heave up the words. If it were any other woman he'd have comforted them kindly but I wasn't worth the acting.

I spotted Guy at the back, since my eyes were already open. His face was tight, tighter than it had been before and he had an expression of thought on it. My heart fluttered, I told myself he was just angry that the doctor was treating me like the poor girl I was rather than someone he had presented. Guy didn't know me, he couldn't call my bluff and he wouldn't know what I looked like when I was keeping a secret, and even if he did he wouldn't care, or I hoped he wouldn't anyway.

The doctor looked at my eyes once more before pacing away to talk to Guy, obviously deeming me to no be of a fit state to understand my own medical information. It didn't take him long to finish talking and leave, shooting me one last look of distain.

I didn't feel spritely but if I had to stand and walk back to my own room, I supposed I probably could at that moment, although the idea was not the most pleasing as I recalled the stairs that had taken me down before. The thought created another involuntary shudder; I did not want to tackle those stairs.

"You're concussed." Guy disclosed as he wandered over to the bed, marginally less cool sounding than before. Maybe it was worry rather than an actual lack of care after all. "Which is just about the best it could have been, considering the fall you had." He finished with a raise of his eyebrow, as if it were a question rather than a statement, and I knew what it was he wanted to get from me.

"I'm sorry I was dizzy sir and I slipped, I'm sorry for bothering you sir I should be elsewhere-" I began to hurry, trying to pull myself up from the bed before he stopped me with a raised hand.

"You don't try to move, you'll be more dizzy now then you would have been then." His voice had softened a little more, he was probably content by now that I hadn't planned it. Guy drew closer to the bed, there was no lust in his eye mind and I knew I wouldn't be able to sate it if there was.

"Why did you twitch when he touched your stomach?" His voice was but a whisper, though a loaded one and seemed to come from no where further than atop me, which was accurate. We were once more painfully close yet this time there was no desire, maybe even another veiled threat ready under those dark words.

For a long time I didn't know how to reply, I knew he probably knew the words I wanted to utter and yet I still could not say them. I could lie I supposed, pretend I was feeling ill, that it hadn't even crossed my mind, claim all innocence to the fact I'd already avoiding telling him. But I knew, those pale blue eyes would stare into my soul and call my bluff faster than I could even dream to pull it.

No, I steeled myself for the task, staring into those blue eyes, refusing to let them go. I had little flashing of our night together pass through my mind, his roaming hands guiding me similarly to the way they had today. I was all a pleasant dream I'd wished I never had to endure, I almost regretted the sickly sweet event now in the light of day.

Slowly I pulled myself up in the bed, and I clenched my eyes tight shut, as if to seal out the world and his reaction. I waited until my heart as slowed, until my lungs were mine to command and were obeying to work at the slow perfect pace, one that wasn't scared, wasn't worried.

"I think I might be with child."

Silence, I could not see his face due to the thick eyelids that blocked the way, and yet I did not hear a single sound. Not a heart beat out of a place, a gasp or sigh. It was as if the entire world had died at the words.

Once more I winced, waiting for the harsh contact of hand on cheek.

Author note:

Sorry that this chapter is a bit, dull I suppose. I promise it will get better I just need to flesh the thing out a little. Also I hope you've enjoyed reading them as much as I have writing them and if not feel free to tell me why not in a review!

Lucy x


	5. Chapter 5

I was braced, ready for the pain that would envitably come. I waited, I really did. it felt like minutes before I dared to relax my face, and even then it was tentative. I half expected it to happen the moment I'd just about accepted that it wouldn't, that wouldn't be unusual, it would have been a power play, not that I needed reminding exactly where it lay.

Carefully I opened my eyes, ignoring the head rush that the singular motion caused. What I saw, I didn't know what to feel about it.

Guy wasn't raising an arm to me, there was no sign that he was going to shake me, attempt to cause me physical harm or throw me out of the room. I steadied myself at that, I truly thought they might have been my last words.

He wasn't looking at me even, just staring into nothing with a horrible look of confusion on his face. I didn't dare ponder upon the thoughts in his mind; I knew it wouldn't be the sort of thing I wanted to hear. He'd be solving the problem, trying to think of ways to get rid of me or the possible child.

I bit my lip, trying to stop a stray sob or vagrant tear from escaping, I would be better than that, because it wasn't fair on him to do that. I'd already imposed by landing up here under the circumstances, I knew I would let him do what he had to do, and it wasn't his fault. If I hadn't wandered in he would not have had to even think about it, it was my own poor timing that caused this mess.

My breathing was shaky and I'd felt a tear teeter over the edge by the time he turned around to look at me. I knew that state of me only made it harder for him, that if I'd kept it together it would be easier for him to see me as a task rather than a person. His face was coloured with a mixture of sadness, regret and confusion when his eyes pierced into mine.

"I-" he began, a twist in his lips told me what this was going to be about, he saw me as a person and so he felt he had too.

"No, it's my fault sir. Don't apologize." The words were more like a whisper, but it was true. I didn't want to hear his apologies it wouldn't make anything better and I would only make me worse.

"Do you have plans?" He asked, resealing the crack in his stone like persona, because god forbid it look like he cared for someone. I just stared at him, no graces covering my words, no under lying motive or hidden goal. I was desperate, and I'd come partly to tell him, and at least in part for his help.

"I can't keep him." Even the words sounded like a failure, like I'd given up. I suppose I had, because what else could I do? Was I meant to die alone with a crying bastard because I'd made a mistake, was that the done thing? By this point tears were rolling from my eyes with reckless abandon, there was no point hiding anything.

"I- cannot help you." He'd paused, made it sound like the words physically hurt him to say and a little part of me was glad, a little part of me and it was so unbearably tiny, it wanted him to pay for my mistake. It was foolish and awful, he had done me no wrong and saved me from a possibly awful end more than once. I didn''t pretend that it hadn't upset me, I took a sob of an inhale as he finished his sentence/

"You should stay here tonight, because of your head but after then I will not see you." He was calm and collected in the face of my own breakdown, I suppose this was what they teach in courts, the ability to lie, act and deal with broken women. "Do you understand?" His voice was rougher then, again a thinly veiled threat, He didn't was me to kiss and tell. He didn't care what I did to his bastard child, he didn't care if we both died he just wanted me out from under his nose where I would make a bad impression.

"I understand, although-" I took a deep breath, collecting what was still left of my pride. " You'll forgive me if I'd rather spend the night in my own bed, as much as I no doubt owe my life to your kindness sir."

I didn't give him the option to say no, I didn't even let him reply as I pulled myself off of his bed and to my feet. My head hurt, my back hurt and my whole body shook and some how I still stumbled out as he managed to say "as you wish" in a voice that I understood now. It had all been a game to him, see how long he could play me along, this was a move he hadn't planned on so when he ignored.

At this point I knew he didn't care, he wanted me gone. He offered me the bed because he had to by honour but I wasn't going to stay because he had to let me. I'd been taken in, I'd believed the lies and now I was hurting because of it. I rambled my way down a corridor aimlessly. I had no plans of making it to my room tonight, I'd sleep where I fell without a complaint and if I woke up in the dungeon or with some unknown stranger then who cared?

What did I have? My job wouldn't be waiting, my room was barely a bed, the last man I'd made love to didn't want to see me and I possibility had his child inside me.

My legs crumbled beneath me, I'd made it maybe 20 yards from his door and I fell hard onto the stone. I didn't hit my head this time, just scraped my knees. I had no intention of standing up though, I'd had it with moving around. I felt as though my head was going to explode and that my body would simply drop off below the neck, and in my current state it was a nice thought.

I knew there was a chance, not a large one but still a chance, that I had just become ill and that I wasn't with his child. It was unlikely but I suppose it could happen, but even in that event I didn't have any work. I wouldn't survive long without the money, I'd have to move out of the hold and marry a man who had a job and bear his children. The thought made me want to vomit all over again, I wondered if I looked like a cattle, whom to survive I would have to bear child. Was it not understandable for a woman to have no desire for the children of a man she cares nothing for.

I curled up, ignoring the light burn of my skin pulling across the rough stone, I knew I would never sleep. It wasn't the sleep I wanted, it was the being alone, being anonymous. To the great Guy of Gisborne I wasn't a person I was a number, I was house maid #. He wouldn't have known my face from a line before I'd fallen into his bed when he needed a friend and now he didn't want to know it, he wanted me gone faster than he wanted me in bed.

Tears kept falling from my cheeks causing a little puddle of sobs on the floor below, no doubt somebody would pass after and think there was a leak. Somebody would get my job as well, would be able to be independent for a little while longer. I supposed the woman who talked about what happened to me were right, maybe I had been attacked and I just didn't know about it at the time. I couldn't bare to think about it, or him. I wanted to curl up on the floor and for the world to go away but it didn't seem to want to, it was persistent.

It wasn't late enough that people had stopped roaming the castle because I could still hear them, some downstairs some up, all of them passing me by without a care, most of them would never know there was another girl sleeping without a bed to night. I know I wouldn't have known or even cared, when life was fine you didn't care about the girl underneath you at all, you didn't even think about her.

With that I knew that the whole castle would be sleeping soon and I would still be here, crying myself to sleep on the stone.


	6. Chapter 6

I crawled home sometime that night, I just couldn't spend the whole night out there. Once I got myself home it took at the very least a few days before my held felt right again, and with each day that passed I could have sworn I felt my stomach grow, maybe I was just kidding myself.

I was right about work as well, I went as soon as I could and they told me to turn around and go back home. It wasn't going to be home for long though was it. I didn't have savings to dip into; at all. it would be a case of having to leave soon. I wondered where I would go, and what the hell I would do. If I was with child no man would take me, and I'd be homeless, and without work, I'd probably die somewhere on the streets in an alley way everybody had forgotten about.

Was this the cost of it? A selfish morning and a day spent sick and the whole world crumbles beneath me, I knew he could have excused me once more, let me keep the job but it wasn't going to happen. I wasn't human enough for him to think about it and I was certainly not going to kneel down and beg for my life like his house pet.

Would I die for my pride? What else is there to die for, was I meant to last until old age in some drunkards cellar, be hung for some crime of passion? If my own hubris was to kill me then so be it, but I knew Guy may as well have stabbed me that day, and I hoped in hindsight he knew.

I would defer to survival, find a man to wed before I showed and run away once I'd birthed. I could kill the child easily enough physically, cover my blood with hands fresh from my body and drown him in a lake but I would be killing myself. It would be an act of suicide to kill off part of myself, but I would do it because I had to and I knew it.

That was the plan at least, funny how that never works out isn't it.

About a month after the mistake they began to gently prod me for the rent, I stalled them as long as I could but I couldn't go and try to find work because I was starting to show. It was hardly noticeable but it would be and then I'd be out on my ear

They came soon after that, first gentle tapping followed by forceful rapping. They forced the door open and marched in, all six of them.

Five wore dusty battle leathers decorated with the crest of the guard, but the other was obviously their commander. The tall swarthy man's armour glinted in the low light from my little window, it was some sort of plate that I wouldn't be able to name. Not that it mattered, I knew why they were there and as a turn of events went, it wasn't the worst thing that could have happened.

"You are 14 sunrises behind in your payments and by the power given to the sheriff of Nottingham we're here to remove you." Their leader sounded bored as he recited the lines dutifully, you could tell he did it god knows how many times a day. They all approached where I'd perched on the bed.

I considered resisting, fighting them off and running for it, but what would be the point. In the dungeon I'd have had shelter and food at least for the time being. I stood gently, resisting the urge to caress my bed and the walls as if to say goodbye. I pattered across the stone floor, wearing whatever old woollen dress I'd slipped on and stood right between two sets of arms held out.

They locked onto my arms, imprisoning me tightly between them. They walked at a fast pace and between them I had to hurry to stay caught up with my arms; thankfully they slowed to descend the stair case to the cells.

It was icy down there, and damp. The air seemed to smell of sadness, decay and the thoughts of dying men. There was something about it that dulled any happiness I might have felt that I was going to be safe, I assumed it was the sadness that lingers there after years of holding the condemned. To be happy in such a place just wasn't human, and although they would disagree with me, I was human and I would not shrug that off.

They put me in a cell not far from the stairs and locked the iron bars behind me. It should have scared me, filled me with untold dread and made me want to run, but it didn't. I wasn't safe per say, they might still execute me, or cut my hand off but there was little chance of me starving and that is always something.

The space didn't vibrate with screams as them up top would have had me think, no just the shuffles of people crammed into a small space. We were left quite alone down in the dungeon, and I felt guilty for letting that unnerve me. I knew I could be but a few iron bars from a murder, thief or rapist.

It wasn't right for me to think it, I didn't doubt that most of the people down here were in a similar situation or worse than mine. I rolled over and tried to savour the relative safety of my position.

Somehow it seemed barely moments since I'd drifted off when I was woken in a hardly gentle manner.

My eyes flicked open, stinging at the noise. Boots, I figured out, it was boots clacking on the floor. I sat up on the bed roll to watch, since I had a clear view of anybody who came down here.

I didn't need to have the view it seemed, as the two men who arrived down the stairs made straight for my cell, they both had old helms on so I couldn't make out what their faces were doing, to work out whether this was good or bad for me.

"Get up, you're wanted in court" one of the guards announced, his voice rough and low. It didn't make any difference either, I couldn't tell whether he was cold because he didn't enjoy to watch people suffer or because he did and there was to be none.

I did as I was bid and followed the pair, I had never been in the court with the intention of being noticed, because usually I was just a shadow. I looked at my stomach, hoping that nobody else would notice me showing, it wouldn't work in my favour if anybody knew about Guy and the mistake I'd made.

Before my the guards opened two large doors onto a throne room of sorts that held the court. In the chair at the top of the well-dressed room sat the sheriff.

His fingers cocked at me, beckoning me in. I smiled a fraction, as a manner and bowed my head before moving further into the room, stopping just before the chair and dropping the knee. I knew it wasn't entirely required for a sheriff but we were in a throne room, which made him regent.

Silence fell upon the room but even in the awkwardness I refused to move, if he wanted me to struggle he would have what he wanted.

"SHUT THE DOOR" he suddenly bellowed across the room, I couldn't help the small squeak I let out in reaction. I knew even as the door closed behind me with a thud his eyes were on me.

"What did you say?" The Sheriff asked, it was a false attempt at softness in his tone, one that was might to lull me into a false sense of security around him. I didn't so much as look up as I replied dutifully.

"I did not say anything Sir" I kept my voice low and careful, I wasn't in the business of getting myself hung and the Sheriff was not known for his mercy.

"Funny that, isn't it." I heard him rise and stomp harshly down each step. "A little birdy tells me you've got keeping quiet to a very fine art my dear" His voice was mocking as he got closer, and he started to push a finger under my chin, pulling my head up to face him from my knees.

I felt like a child below him, my eyes welling up with small tears of fear and my hands trembling slightly on the floor.

"I don't know what you mean Sir?" there was question in my voice, but sorrow in my eyes. I'd never been a worthwhile liar and time had not changed that.

"You're a liar as well, do you know what we do to liars?" He goaded, I shuddered remembering the girl who'd fetched the doctor for me, I knew what was coming. I'd hang for this


	7. Chapter 7

I had to stop myself, every muscle in my body wanted to stand and walk out. I resented being treated like a child for his amusement. I resented that I was being condemned for a mistake that was almost not mine at all. Yet I did not act out, I behaved in a way my mother would have been proud of, keeping my sirs, sires, and my lords in order. That would be my only saving grace if they killed me off, they'd remember me polite until the end.

"Yes, I know what you do to liars' sir." I cringed, knowing all too well "I wish beg your forgiveness." Another tear left my eye, and I looked upon him, since he had my chin so I had no other option. I gave the sadness most innocent look I possessed, channelling all the fear I had into it.

"Never mind that silver tongue of yours, I'll cut it off when you finish admitting your other crimes." As I opened my mouth to respond his rough fingers reached up to catch my tongue between a pair of them and he held my head up with my now captured tongue.

"I don't want your lies-" he began, squeezing my tongue painfully sharply until I jerked underneath him violently, but then he stopped. And he stopped looking at me as well, he was staring at the door with a glare even worse than the one he has used on me.

Then I heard it, I hadn't been paying attention to the rest of the world while he was talking but now. The door was cracking open, that was the attraction over there. I couldn't turn to see who had opened the door but I didn't need to.

"They told me I was wanted Sire-" I couldn't decide if I desired that voice or not, if the beautiful tones that Guy spoke in was going to save me or not.

"Gisborne, I'm sure this one would like to say something sweet but-" the Sheriff looked back at me with a raised eyebrow, pitching my tongue harder to make me wince. "I think she's a bit tied up." I couldn't see, I wished I could. All I heard were his feet running up the hall towards us both.

"What is the meaning of this." Guy growled, I tried to imagine the look on his face.

"I'm hurt Gisborne." His face mocked sadness and he pretended to sob. "Why didn't you bring your fiancé to meet me?" He paused for a moment, and shot a dark glare towards where I assumed Guy stood.

"Or is this one not your fiancé? Have you just taken to giving common girls your bastard sons." He stopped but nobody said anything, the room was silent. I realised how much my tongue and neck hurt, I was being pulled at an angle that I wasn't meant to be at and sooner or later I would crack.

"I've never seen her before." Guy spat, pretending to be insulted that anybody would ins uiate he bedded me. Brilliant, he's going to do so well at saving me.

"DO NOT LIE TO ME." The sheriff screamed, drawing a drop of blood from my tongue with his fingernail. "I have eyes everywhere Gisborne, and I'm not the only one." He dropped my tongue after one last pinch, and I recoiled, forgetting that I should be kneeling.

I was a heap on the ground, broken and numb. My eyes were searching for Guy and they did not appreciate what they found, there was no sympathy, no empathy in those eyes. He wasn't looking at me, he was mentally battling with the other man and I was here, thrown to the wayside like a broken doll. I was the anonymous puppet; neither of them knew my name.

They were shouting, screaming at each other in front of me and I'd lost the ability to tell one voice from another or a word from another.

Guy was defending his actions, claiming that bedding a woman was normal, something every lord in the land was guilty of and the sheriff scolding him, telling him that a bastard child would ruin his creditability. That nobody would take him seriously and that if he ever desired to marry, which he will in due time, he would not be able to find a woman.

I wasn't having it, I didn't care for their petty little problems, Guy had made a mistake, not me. Why should I pay for something he had done? If it was anybody else I'd taken to bed in a fit of lust, nobody would care but because it was Guy of Gisborne I was going to get it.

I would never understand why I was to blame for his straying from the path, whether it was just the fact that I had tempted him rather than anything else that condemned me, or something darker and more dangerous. Either way it was no fair, before that morning I had been the model subject, the dependable woman who'd somehow stayed independent for as long as she could.

Now what was I? Lying on the floor of a throne room weeping, unable to speak and unable to move, accused of crimes I didn't think were even crimes. Was this what was meant to happen?

Was I meant to be pet to these noble men, was I jsut another puppet for them to play with? I liked to think I wasn't I had liked to think that for years but now in a puddle of my own tears and a few drops of blood I knew. I was just a pawn, and now even a overly played pawn in this game of lords and nobles.

They stopped arguing for a moment, I'd stopped paying attention ages ago but they were staring at me so I finally tuned myself back in.

"If it has to be done, I will do it sire." He stated, cool and slightly tinted with regret but nothing sharper nothing that said he truly cared.

I knew what he meant, they were going to kill me and he was volunteering to take the knife to me neck, he was going to be the one with blood on his hands. I suppose if I was going to be someone I would want it to be him, he needed to understand that his easy words had killed me, that he was the one stuipid enough to let the Sheriff know of our evening together.

"Get it out my sight then." the Sheriff announced before adding "and don't let her make a mess will you?" At that he turned around, heading back to his 'throne'.

Guy came towards me, eyes that were usually so beautiful darkened by the anger there, it was not the most pleasant place i had ever been as he pulled me to my feet. He grabbed the neck of my dress firmly and pulled, literally dragging me out of the room by the neck. The clothe burnt me and the movement hurt my now numb legs but I followed, I knew of all the things I wanted I would not be litterally dragged to my death, I would go on my feet and proud of it.

I didn't know where we were going, he didn't take me outside, in fact we went up a free flights of stairs, which he did not slow down for. I nearly choked on my dress twice as it came up around my neck but thankfully I did not stumble. I only realised where we were going by the time we were there.

Guy's bed chamber. I wondered if he planned on doing me in over his sheets, or if he wanted to get as much fun out of me as he could before he took my head off now that it didn't matter. I stopped thinking about it.

When we were inside he dropped me to my knees on the floor and I just sat there, dead and un feelings already. I didn't care if he wanted to come and rape me but I was not going to help him, if he wanted to beat me I would not cry out. What was the point? I was just dead and nothing else mattered after that.

Guy crouched on the floor in front of where I knelt, and his face melted. The harshness that had been there since he arrived, it was gone. The rage I had seen cover his features, the anger that i had feared for as long as I was in the room all gone.

As I knelt there he took my face into his hands, stroking my cheek gently and pushing one of the stray tears away, letting the lightest smile touch his lips for but a moment in the way that told of regret and words that had never been said out loud.

"I am sorry"

Author notes:

As of tomorrow I doubt I'm going to be able to update twice a day as I have been but I will try for at least once if not more! Thank you for reading and I really hope you're enjoying it, if you're not feel free as always to tell me why.


	8. Chapter 8

I just stared at him, watching the little changes in his expression, the little things that showed when he wasn't acting, little signs he was still human. It was unseen in his usual act, the way he hid from the world and played as Guy of Gisborne in the courts and in front of the Sherriff.

It was like looking at him naked, seeing him alive for once. I tried to utter my thanks, tried to move my tongue to form words, tried to tell him I was happy to be alive but it wouldn't work. My tongue was numb from blood loss and every time I even tried to speak what came out was a garble of sounds barely recognisable as human.

"Shush" he murmured softly, his hands never leaving my face. I didn't feel as alone anymore, he was there and he was going to keep me from dying. I had hope for a change that I could make it this time, that I had a way to survive this and that maybe I could make something of this.

I nodded at him, and he smiled lightly back at me. I didn't particularly want to move but he helped me up, pulling me away from the floor and up to my feet. Guy was gentle, it wasn't as before when he yanked me by the neck, he held a hands out and took mine in his, pulling with the right amount of pressure to allow me to glide up.

I used my eyes to convey what I could not say, to tell him I owed him my life and my dignity. I don't think he caught it, not really but I didn't care much.

He led me over to a set of chairs and perched me on one and sat opposite.

"You have to hide." Guy stated, the lightness remained lingering in the back of his voice but he was serious, this wasn't a game anymore.

"If he finds you, he'll kill you and me both." There was a growl, the low burning resentment in his voice which I nodded to placate. I didn't want to be killed, and I did not want to be his down fall.

"You'll have to stay here for a while, until I can find you somewhere out of the city." He raised his eyes, which had dropped to the floor to my face, checking my reaction, to see if this was going to be at all possible.

I simply nodded, my face held a little mourning for having to leave my life long home but I would do it if I had too, if it meant my life I would do it. To that end I tried to smile, at least a little, it wasn't his fault that this was happening as much as it seemed to feel like it sometimes.

He nodded as well, admitting to us both that it was hardly a turn of events either of us wanted. I knew in my heart that Guy regretted this, all of it. His actions in the heat of the moment that caused all of this he hadn't wanted it and it wasn't worth the trouble.

"I'll have to stay here while you're here, lest he suspect I didn't take you out to die." Again I nodded; right now I was near enough ready to accept anything that would keep me alive until tomorrow.

Things were bad before, but now I had the Sheriff wanting me dead, which was an all-time low. When he wanted you dead, within the year you would be dead and that was that. I had on my side that I looked ordinary, I blended in. No doubt he'd forget me in an hour, but there was a chance he wouldn't since I caused such a scathing argument between him and Guy, I just had to hope and pray that I wouldn't be hiding forever. I didn't think I could take that if I wanted too.

Once again my absent thoughts brought a tear to my eye, it didn't quite brim over but he'd see it, he wasn't blind.

"Will I be hiding forever?" I asked, my words slurred but my tongue had managed to get the few words out. Guy looked at me for a moment, the light of his eyes staring deep into mine and thinking.

"Maybe" was all he had to say, the blue in his eyes turning to ice. His hand reached across and rested on my knee, touching it only lightly so that if I wished I could draw it away from him. I didn't.

"I shouldn't have drawn you into this." Guy declared, admitting it to me, to the world. He'd said it now, he'd laid the blame and with that I was happy, I didn't want anything else. What else was there to want in the world? I didn't know I didn't dare even ask for anything more I just looked at him, pulling a smile across my face was harder than it should have been but I managed it carefully.

"You saved me sir, you have nothing to be sorry for." I spoke my words carefully, enunciated each one carefully to stop from lisping with my damaged tongue. It ached to say the words, but I didn't care anymore, it was just a case of saying them because they needed to be said now.

"I nearly got you killed first." He retorted, squeezing my knee lightly. "My later goodness did not forgive my earlier sins" his lip twitched, pleased by the little poetry in his words.

I nodded again, my tongue too weary to attempt to move and form words. Even if it was I wouldn't know what to say, he was right, he was the reason I was in the trouble he saved me from and the fact he saved me did not make him innocent. Yet I couldn't bring myself to hate him as I had at my lowest, he'd taken my into his heart, he'd lied to the man who held his life in his hands to save me.

It took me a while to comprehend that, that he'd lied to the sheriff. Truly that was worth /his/ tongue let alone mine, and probably his life and he'd done it, without thinking in the heat of the moment to save me.

He snatched his hand away, raising a finger for my silence as his face turned to concentration at the speed of light. He appeared to be straining to hear, so I followed suit, seeing if there was anything I could make out of the little noises that were about.

Then I picked it up, a pair of footsteps outside of the door, they were down the hall some way by the sounds of it and coming this way.

I jumped up and slid my way behind a blinder, I knew it would do little good but I hoped that he would divert whoever it was, that they wouldn't get passed him door way.

I waited, straining to hear from behind the wooden wall, trying to avoid breathing for the noise it might make. They went straight past, the footsteps that was. Not even hesitating at the door way and yet I stayed where I was, frozen to the spot for a god thirty seconds later, just in case he turned around and came to get me.

It was Guy who came to fetch me from behind the blinder, taking my hands once more and drawing me up.

"It's okay, he wasn't coming for you." He lilted, trying to calm me from my state of shock. I didn't want him to be the one who paid for our actions now, I was far less important. If he was human he stood a chance at changing things for the better, i didn't. I didn't matter at all but he did, and that wasn't something I was willing to risk.

I could incriminate myself if I had to, tell people I made him intoxicated, planned to arrive into his chamber and offer myself to him, it would work and nothing else would be on his head. Nobody would blame him for giving into the woman who stalked him into his own bed, in fact he'd get a sympathy vote.

I stood there, my eyes burning into his, letting him take my fear away. This man before me, I'd hated him, condemned him and wished that for some reason that he would suffer for our joint crimes and now I was willing to give life and love to save him. Without even a thought I was willing to die to save him, to let him have a chance at changing things for other people.

I was either a fool or a braver woman than I actually knew, either way I knew what I was going to do. I knew what my life was going to be like for the next few years but I also knew I wouldn't let him go down for our mistake.

I knew I would hang for him now.


	9. Chapter 9

Guy kept to his word, he did let me stay in his room.

At first we were having minor logistical issues, such as the first night when we had to awkwardly decide to share the bed once more. I'd missed being warmed by the presence of another human being; it was something that truly you couldn't compare to anything else, well maybe.

I woke up that night, jutted from my sleep in fear by someone's touch. I thought I was being dragged away back to the dungeons or to the rope, but it wasn't. I had a pair of arms encircling my waist gently. I thought about pushing away but that would be cruel, and honestly I didn't feel like it. His touch was warm and pleasant, I wasn't about to give that up for foolish sense and sensibility.

No, I drifted back to sleep. I didn't know if he knew that he did it in the middle of the night, but I never mentioned it to him for fear of upsetting him. I suspected he would have done it to whomever shared the bed with him, and it would embarrass him the poor thing if I told him. So I kept my peace and enjoyed my late night embraces while I could.

As dicey as it was staying in there, I didn't want to leave the city. I wondered if I could hide in here for the time being, if I could just find myself sweeping floors when people had to be around. Not many people were ever due to enter his chamber very often.

Every day that passed we became less awkward, of course he couldn't change any of his habits lest somebody notice but we did a good job of making it look the same. I cleaned his room instead of another girl, they didn't suspect anything, and none of them knew they ought to be telling the sheriff about me, not really. Besides nobody knew one of us from another, we were the ghosts of the castle, people just didn't notice the girl with a broom and a bucket it was somewhat the blessing.

With each day I was becoming more swollen however, it was obvious now, even to passers-by that I was with child. I couldn't deny it to myself any longer; I couldn't pretend that it would all go away when I was being sick early in the morning. It wasn't as bad as the first time mind, I'd obviously been dehydrated in the first place that day which made me twice as ill as I ought to have been. Besides, most days Guy found some excuse to be in his room and stayed with me, holding the hair away from my face carefully.

To him I was a friend now, a companion. I don't know if that was out of nescaity or not but it was true. We talked over whatever dinner we shared of an evening and he would tell me of all the gossip in the court, and of all the tradgies of the outside world.

Even when I'd been free in the first place it was not something I was used to, nobody who wasn't actually a lord or lady knew anything of the news in the court. Carriages of men arrived seemingly at random and left in the same way, nobody bothered to warn us about these changes in the guard and scenery. It was just the way things seemed to be. Everything was unpredictable, you never knew what would happen and to end you never made a plan you were unwilling to break. There was no such thing as a sure thing anymore, not for us.

Gentle words washed over me as he explained the intricacies of his usual life, without frowning at my lack of knowledge. Of course times came when he had to leave, had to act the harsh cold lord and he managed it effortlessly. I however had to work at it, to stop giving sideways faces and soft eyes and put on my dropped eyes and straight back once more. Nobody had picked us up on our acts yet, but it would only be a matter of time, you can only hide in plain sight for so long.

It got too close once, he'd been visited by his Steward and the man had given me a queer look, like he had seen me more than once too often. I waited until I knew he was down the corridor before I turned to Guy, panic showing clearly on my face.

"He knows who I-" I began, babbling and concocting plans to get us out of this, already wondering how I would phrase my last words. With a furrow of his brow he stopped me.

"He knows nothing, you're safe." The edge to his voice was there, I might not have been the smartest woman alive but it didn't take a genius to work out he was lying, at least in part. I was in possibly the most dangerous place I could be, and we were both completely aware and yet choosing to ignore the facts.

"Liar." I stated coolly, the word was used in fun, a joke meant to mean nothing more but in that moment I felt exposed again. I'd crossed a line, in my head at least. Everything we'd said to each other before then was friendly, but polite, tinged with the sort of awkwardness that passing friends would have. Now there was something else, an accusation hung in the air. We both knew it was truth as well as lies, that it was a lie he meant to protect me with, to coddle me because it was all his fault he had to even think about my welfare.

Deciding whether I meant it to hang like it did, well it was hard but part of me wanted him to see the flicker of anger in my eyes, the touch of darkness that blamed him for everything that happened. It was immature, wrong to even think it. I could have said no, nothing about that day was forced, I wanted it as much as he needed it at the time.

"You want to truth then?" Guy's voice was sharp, lined with poison and more than deadly serious.

"He's hunting you, and he won't stop, you won't ever be 'safe' again."

There was almost a hint of a growl as he sped up, finishing with a glare. Taking half a pace back I held his eyes. I thought I'd gotten over it, thought I understood that I lived on borrowed time but it hurt to hear the words. My reply seemed to dry up in my throat, leaving me looking entirely as pitiful as I felt.

"Put me out of my misery then, if the end is set in stone already." It didn't matter that my voice shook, or that a tear was half way towards brimming down over my cheek, because at that moment I hadn't just crossed that line, I'd danced over it and there was no taking such a statement back. I meant it though, I wanted to die now rather than later.

My eyes fluttered shut, exposing me to the world without a defense. My heart skipped a beat as cold sharp steel touched my throat and dragged touching only lightly across the vital artery.

"Don't ask for what you don't want-" His voice was low now, dangerously so. "One day someone might give it to you."

With a flourish the blade left my skin, drawing a tiny little trail of blood behind it. I recoiled, eyes wide open and staring up at him, refusing to reach up and touch the blood on my neck. I hide that fear away for another time, a time when I would need it because right now I was fighting the person trying to help me, the one person who could help me.

"So you're going to just let me rot then? Hide me away until someone does find out, because they will." I kept my cool, feeling the blood tighten on my neck as his gaze fixed upon it. I could have sworn I saw a flash of something across his eyes at that moment, something different. It wasn't anger and it softened his face, calmed the otherwise stiff lines that had formed.

Guy's eyes flickered up to mine with all the blue intensity they could channel.

"No, I'm not."

Author notes:

I'm so freaking sorry this took months to update and yeah. Two words for you all: Exams, College. It's pretty grim as well but the next chapter, can you smell a plot twist because I can smell a plot twist!


	10. Chapter 10

Guy left after that, stormed out without another word. I shouldn't have pushed him, it wasn't fault this was happening, and it made his life more awkward than it made mine. Especially since every passing day my condition became more difficult to conceal if I was found. There wasn't anything that could be done for it though, in fact I was beyond lucky that he'd allowed me somewhere to stay and hadn't handed me over the Sherriff when he has his chance. I did make you wonder though, was the borrowed time worth living if it was so tense? Perhaps it would have been better if he'd handed me over, then again of the all the ways to go, the rope is not the most desirable of all.

Worry took me over as the hours past, where was he? The sun had nearly set and he was still out, I thought for a moment that maybe the Sherriff had taken him for an errand as he did infrequently, I never slept those nights. No, I stood awake, at the window waiting. It was a risk, but just for a moment I was able to pretend that we were lovers, that he would confide in me as to the days hardships and we would share a bed. Of course the illusion shattered when I ducked within the stone walls at the sight of a torch upon a horse that couldn't be his, I was just a project of his like a flower box on a window sill.

Dawn crept upon me before he returned, casting light on the road but his horse never passed. I could only assume he was working in the city, this should have provided some comfort maybe but it didn't.

The illusion was long gone when he finally entered behind me, sending me jumping around unsure what I would do to an intruder. I was half ready to strike when I saw his face, and that face did nothing to relive my fears. Guy's hair was messy, full of the tell-tale unruly patches which told me he'd be pulling it all night long, his eyes were red but not puffy and the pupils seemed the size of pin points.

Immediately I shuffled within myself, pulling back from my defensive stance and trying to turn, to allowe him whatever he needed. His face hadn't seemed angry per say but I wasn't willing push it, last time it was a mistake and this time it would have been suicide.

I couldn't gaze out the window, the sun was too high and I would have been seen. Though the odds of someone noticing a girl at the window were slim at night , simply because there was very few riders on the road, was a real danger in the day time. Of course they wouldn't be able to know It was me, but it would spread around court and people would wonder and ask, I wasn't willing to do that to him on top of everything else.

Moving to refold things in his wardrobe as was a near habit now, I tried to avoid the silence. I tried to avoid the fact I knew he wasn't moving, despite the fact it brought unbreakable terrors into my heart. Whatever this was, it wasn't good and to that end I was better off not knowing. I instead contemplated, as I folded shirts, what would happen when I finally had the child. He could never acknowledge it, and we would still be in danger but there would be no way of living like this, in the room I was held prisoner in now. It plagued my mind but I knew what many mothers would do, but I did not know if I would have the strength to save my child the pain of the world, and that would do nothing for my problems. I knew I would not be welcome here forever, maybe running away was the answer, if I rode in the night to some far off village and offered myself to a lord for his services. It was no promise of a better life, of course since many a lord would reject my proposal if they even consented to see me, but it was an option and that was all I had these days, options and choices all as bad as the last.

Movement behind me snapped me out of my future and back into the present, giving me whiplash along the way. I'd frozen, because when you're as terrified to breathe as I'd become, that's your only defence.

"Stop"

One word. An order I didn't need, a sentiment I didn't want. His very voice setting my façade to crumble once more. For all my graces, for all the goodness my mother had taught me all those years ago I snapped, letting my tongue take the defence it knew better than to. Dropping the shirt I turned to him, fire on my tongue as I stared into those burning ice eyes.

"No, you stop." My voice broke even as I uttered the words. I was throwing it all away, every piece of kindness he'd ever done me just because he had scared me. My head was locked in this battle with my heart, yet I wasn't sure which it was that wanted this.

His face tightened, as if I'd slapped him before stepping towards me. Guy grabbed my wrists, holding them firmly enough to sting and I knew better than to struggle. Our eyes met and didn't let go.

"There's not time for this." He insisted "They'll be here soon"

My heart, in fairness, had no further to fall but somehow it found a way. He'd left in anger last night, but I had never dreamt, never thought that- this. I couldn't run they'd catch me, I couldn't hide they'd find me, there was nothing left.

"You know what they will do to me." I whispered, tears breaking like waves on my cheeks now. "to the child"

Though unstably, on account of the bound wrists, I knelt before him.

"Please, my lord, do me this mercy!" raggedly once more I inhaled "You could offer me a quick death, one that I will not see at the hands of the Sherriff's men. I'm begging you, I will suffer for days if you do not save me once more."

My soliloquy continued until he crumbled, literally in a sense as he knelt before me. I had pleaded for death the night before, but I had not wanted it, not as truly as I did now. Pain was agony then but now? Now it was relief, understanding that I would not be tortured at another's hands for crimes innumerable.

Guy dropped my wrists, drawing the dagger he kept as his side, the grind of steel against leather had me shaking. The tiny prick he'd given me last night has hurt, and this was not going to be a tiny prick.

"I will not forget you" he promised, placing the steel against my flesh to line up. I didn't give him the chance to pull it back, I reached out, joining his hands on the grip and pulled it back towards me. It did not puncture my heart.

Air burnt my throat I inhaled so sharply, and while I had promised myself I would not scream I did on the exhale. My voice would be heard for many metres not that it mattered much. Guy yanked the blade and I drew blood from the lips as I kept from calling out again. Blood trickled from the wound, which was all too low to be quick, I knew that as much as he did, but I would be dead long before they could save me and that's what mattered in the end.

I let my eyes rise from the blood, fixing again on his. They were cold, angry as me, honest I realised. Honest for the first time since we'd met, I'd been a mistake he couldn't shrug off and now I'd gotten blood on his rug and shirts. I was to him, and always had been, nothing more than a stain to be washed away.

I had thought of words to give him, words to tell him how none I could utter described how sorry I was, but they were gone now. If I was a stained rug to him, he was my death and nothing more.

"I do not forgive you Guy of Gisborne." I gurgled out, ignoring the pain it caused.

Guy stood at that, taking the knife with him, and with it taking away the hope I may have had of a quicker death. When he reached the doorway he turned back to my slumped figure, face as empty as I'd ever seen it.

"I don't need your forgiveness."

Author notes:

I'm so, so sorry. I'm sorry for taking this long and I'm sorry for what I've done to my babies. I hope those of you who make it this far have enjoyed the ride, and there will be a little epilogue at some point to tie it all up. I'd like to thank you all for the continued support and ass kicking.


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